Tag Archives: Emeric Pressburger

Few movies grab you heart and soul as does The Red Shoes –Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s masterpiece. Indeed it seems like a hallucinatory vision, come from a magic potion distilled out of a simple but tragic tale conjured by Hans Christian Andersen. That such a masterwork could come from a simple fairy tale is a testament to the art of motion pictures, and to the creative genius of Powell and Pressberger, known as The Archers, along with their incredible production team.

This post was written by Christian Esquevin and previously issued as part of the Powell & Pressburger Movie Blogathon hosted by the Classic Film and TV Cafe in March of 2012.

The Red Shoeswas created in 1948, a blazing work of Technicolor in the black and white world of post World War II England. The film was written by Emeric Pressburger and directed by Michael Powell, but its artistic punch was the work of cinematographer Jack Cardiff, and especially that of art director Hein Heckroth. And as a film largely about ballet, it comes to life through the dancing of star Moira Shearer and of Leonide Massine. Director Michael Powell’s vision nonetheless permeates the film. He had grown up in the French Riviera town of Cap Ferrat, close to Monte Carlo where he had seen the work of the Ballets Russe. It was there that Powell had heard the story of how the great Vaslav Nijinsky and ballerina Romola de Pulszky married , only to be fired afterwards by Diaghilev.

Michael Powell, left, with Emeric Pressburger

Thus emerged a screenplay about a single-minded ballet impresario who launches the career of a young composer, while also molding the career of a beautiful young ballerina. Anton Walbrook plays to perfection the powerful impresario Boris Lermontov, a puppet-master whose marionettes take on a life of their own. Marius Goring plays composer Julian Craster, with the young ballerina Victoria Page played by Moira Shearer. Both characters are trying to make it big in ballet and the orchestra, and to replace existing leads. Lermontov recognizes their talent and believes he can harness their ambition. To Lermontov, ballet is a religion. To aspiring ballerina Victoria Page, she must dance in order to live.

Anton Walbrook as Lermontov

Miss Page will soon have her chance to become prima ballerina. Lermontov is angered when his star ballerina, played by Ludmilla Tcherina, becomes engaged to marry. His view is simple, “You can not have it both ways”, he says. “The dancer that relies on the comfort of human love will never be a great dancer.” Lermontov knows what he wants – it is ART, and everybody working for him must be single-minded in its pursuit – and the pursuit of his vision. Lermontov thinks he has a replacement for her, Victoria Page is as dedicated to the ballet as he is.

A scene shot inside the Opera in Paris

Art permeates The Red Shoesfrom its first title card to its last. While the film is not primarily concerned with filming backstage scenes and ballet production, it nonetheless captures the excitement at the peak of this activity at Covent Garden, as the dancers rehearse, the set dressers move props, musicians practice, sweepers clean, costumed characters parade on stage, and all appears chaotic. In an earlier scene, excited young aficionados rush in to get the best of the cheap seats.

Lermontov himself is always impeccably dressed, often in dark double-breasted suits with crisp white shirts and pale ties. The non-ballet costumes for Moira Shearer were designed by the noted Parisian couturier Jacques Fath along with Malli of London, while Miss Tcherina’s costumes were designed by another Parisian couturier, Carven. When they move the production to Monte Carlo, Miss Page wears a beautiful dress of horizontal stripes in pink, yellow and purple on white. She also wears an elegant full gown of blue over magenta, with a pleated blue silk opera coat.

It is refreshing to see the men dressed in a variety of elegant and casual clothes with great flair. No men’s costume credit is given, but Michael Powell must have provided the direction for the French Riviera style that was needed. At a meeting where they plan a new ballet, Lermontov wears cream-colored slacks with a turquoise-blue short-sleeved silk shirt over a dark blue t-shirt and red scarf. He wears sandals over socks, as was the European fashion. Massine wears cream-colored slacks, a dark blue blazer over a white shirt, with a red scarf and white shoes. When Miss Page enters she wears a loose jacket in light violet-magenta tones over a striped blouse.

A new ballet is being planned, the Red Shoes. Julian Craster will be the composer, and Victoria Page will be the prima ballerina. Red now appears as an accent color in many of the scenes.

Hein Heckroth designed the wonderful sets for the ballet, painting the backdrops himself. He spent six months painting some 120 scenes. Cinematographer Jack Cardiff sent for powerful new spotlights to be shipped to England from the U.S. These he used to light the dancers – brighter spots were needed amidst a general flood of lighting required for the Technicolor film. The incredible painted backdrops were not enough for the fantastical scenes filmed during the ballet – matte paintings were also used. For the Red Shoes Ballet, a magnificent red curtain rises over the scene of a shoemaker, danced by Massine, in front of a beautiful gold and brown set-painting of shelves full of shoes. He holds a special pair of red ballet slippers.

The ballet sequence itself becomes a parable of the ballerina’s life. Massine as the cobbler is a stand-in for Lermontov, enticing Miss Page to dance in the red shoes. Choreographer and dancer Robert Helpmann plays the Lover, representing Craster. She dances happily with the Lover, but still the shoemaker pursues her. At a carnival scene other men forcibly separate the Lover from her, and they dance with her in turns. Soon she out-dances them all, as they drop to the floor and are represented by sheets of colored cellophane falling through the air like leaves from a tree.

The ballet scene leaps dimensions – it is no longer filmed from the point of view of an audience watching a ballet – it becomes the existential reality of Miss Page herself, its sets reflecting her emotions and her predicament. Since Miss Page, as in the original tale, can not stop dancing as long long as she wears the red shoes, she dances her way through a series of magnificently designed but symbolically charged set designs reflecting her inner turmoil.

Miss Page dances through the night. In the early morning twilight, she dances with a floating newspaper, which metamorphoses into the Lover. Still the shoemaker pursues her, and soon demons do too.

She dances back onto the stage, with only Lermontov in his box watching, and Craster conducting. The audience has become a raging sea, and Lermontov and Craster are now huge rocks.

She dances and dances, unable to stop. She dances to a church in a town square, where memorial services are being held. She is not let in – her Lover has now now morphed into a priest. “Take off my shoes”, she gestures. She is offered a knife to cut them off, only it morphs into some flowers. She dies of exhaustion on the steps of the church, where the Lover finally takes off her shoes – and the shoemaker retrieves them for another use. An audience re-emerges to give Miss Page and the ballet wild applause.

And now the film-story mirrors the ballet story. Victoria Page and Craster become lovers, Lermontov fires Craster and she quits. Much later, Lermontov takes on the role of the shoemaker, enticing her to put the red shoes back on. He has gotten over his artistic jealousy for the sake of creating better art. Craster has not, and roils her planned return to the stage. But she has put on the red shoes, and her fate now becomes one with the tale.

As was the case with several great films, the production of The Red Shoes was steeped in problems and animosities. Moira Shearer did not get along with Michael Powell, suffering through injuries and, like the other dancers, discomforted from dancing on concrete studio floors. The initial art director walked off the production when he found out Powell had hired Heckroth to do the ballet sets. The 80 year-old German actor Albert Basserman, who played Ratov the costume and set designer, was publicly dressed down by Powell, and this offended Anton Walbrook who had venerated the veteran actor. And finally, Rank Studios who financed the film was unhappy with the final production, not to mention the significant cost over-run.

Regardless, the film is now considered a masterpiece. Its 17 minute long ballet sequence became a big influence on Vicente Minnelli and Gene Kelly in the production of An American in Paris. And it was Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger that created this masterwork, mixing all the ingredients into the intoxicating stew that is The Red Shoes.

My book on film costume & fashion designer Gilbert Adrian

MEMBER

Meta

Classic films abound in comforting stories and feel-good endings that are right for our times. After years of dystopian movies it’s great to have a plot that doesn’t have everybody dying. During years of the Great Depression, war years, and finally getting back to normal in the 1950s, many movies wanted to look at the […]

The Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival celebrated its 10th anniversary last year, 2019. And as with every film festival or other event this spring, the 2020 TCM Classic Film Festival had to be cancelled due to Covid-19. This year it will be presenting on-air through its cable station highlights from the past ten years […]

When Helen Rose began working at MGM with its roster of stars, mogul Louis B. Mayer told the costume designer to, “Just make them beautiful.” With her plentiful use of chiffon and her figure-flattering style, Helen Rose did just that, designing the costumes for leading ladies including Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner, Cyd Charisse, […]

Every year brings us five nominations for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design. For the movies of 2019 the field was not one of the best in my opinion, even with multiple previous Oscar winners in contention. As is customary, the nominations were made by the Costume Designers branch of the Academy, but […]

Gene Kelly had a storied career as dancer, singer and choreographer. He also partnered with many of the greatest actresses and dancers in show business. He taught dance at his family’s Pittsburgh dance school while attending college and then law school. He gave that up when he decided to act and choreograph on Broadway. He […]

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer began in 1924 with the merger of Metro Pictures, Louis B. Mayer Productions, and Goldwyn Pictures. It was a package costing $5 million. The new owner was Marcus Loew who owned a chain of theaters. He had already bought out Metro Pictures and its studio in Hollywood, but was unsatisfied with its productions. Louis […]

Hollywood’s late costume designer Milo Anderson created looks for the stars that are icons of style. But ask anyone about him and blank stares are the response. His name was simple, as were the styles he created: Joan Crawford’s waitress uniform in Mildred Pierce, Marlene Dietrich’s dark blue trench-coat, skirt and beret in Manpower, Lana […]

A convergence of world phenomena hit director Costa-Gavras when he harnessed their energies to create his political masterpiece Z in 1969. In Paris and France, students and workers went on general strike and caused civil disorder in 1968. In the U.S. President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert F. Kennedy were all assassinated. The Vietnam war caused […]

Universal Studios has the longest history of the Hollywood studios. It was founded in 1912 in New York by Carl Laemmle and other partners. Like many other film companies, it moved west. By the end of 1912 Universal was in Hollywood and by 1915 it opened its 230 acre Universal City Studio, the largest film […]

The Vive la France Blogathon hosted by Lady Eve’s Reel Life and silverscreenmodes.com is live for its first day and second days of August 25 and 26, 2019. Links to posts are embedded in the titles in bold below. Enjoy! Sunday, August 254 Star Films | Leon Morin, Priest (1961) Caftan Woman | Paris Blues (1961)Critica Retro | Faces of […]

This blog post looks back at the history of Paramount Pictures’ Wardrobe Department, its Golden Age costume designers, and its current Archives. An interview with Randall Thropp, the Manager of the Costumes and Prop Archives at Paramount is also included. Movie history permeates the air at the Paramount Pictures Studio Archives. It might be […]

Costuming the HBO series The Game of Thrones is as near a Herculean job as you’ll find in television costume design work. When HBO started production of the series in 2007, there existed a legion of fans that had been reading the book series: George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, since 1996. […]

The film noir classic The Killers, like the Ernest Hemingway short story it was based on, got right to the point. Two men get out of a car at a gas station and enter Henry’s lunchroom. They take a seat. “What’s yours,” George the waiter asks, in the clipped diner-speak of the day. So began […]

Collecting and preserving movie memorabilia is like bottling the river of time. Even the best efforts are fragmentary while the flows continue by. The movie studios themselves made little or no effort in the first decades of movie-making, considering its material objects worthless unless they could be re-used for another production or rented out. To […]

Every year brings us five nominations for the Best Costume Design Academy Award. In 2019 the field had great candidates from the 2018 movies vying for the Oscar, with several multi Oscar winners among the contenders. As is customary, the nominations were made by the Costume Designers branch of the Academy, but all members voted on […]